Unimaginative Love Field never rises above mediocrity

After sitting on a shelf somewhere in the vaults of the financially
strapped Orion Pictures, Love Field, a film made three years ago, is
finally undergoing a theatrical release. When the studio entered into
bankruptcy proceedings early last year, this Michelle Pfieffer vehicle was
among many movies thrust into some sort of limbo state with no clear end in
sight. As the 1992 Oscar season rolled around, however, Orion decided to
give the film a chance, primarily because it was believed that Pfieffer
stood a good chance of receiving one of the best actress nominations to be
named this morning. Unfortunately, Pfieffer fanatics are probably the only
people with an adequate reason to see this disappointing drama. With a
story that is both predictable and dated, Love Field is a
technically well-made and well-meaning movie that nonetheless fails to rise
above mediocrity.

In the film, Michelle Pfieffer plays Laurene, a Dallas beautician who is
obsessed with the lives of the current president, John Kennedy, and his
wife, Jackie. When the couple arrive in Dallas in late November of 1963,
Laurene even convinces her invalid neighbor to accompany her to the airport
so that she can use the woman's injury as an excuse to push to the front of
the eager crowd. Of course, that afternoon Kennedy is assassinated, and
Laurene is devastated. The already frail woman has all of the energy
instantly sucked out of her and she is left pale and stunned, staggering
slowly into nearby restaurants and shops to tell everyone else the tragic
news and to stare shocked at the television as the news of the president's
death is told to the nation by a visibly shaken Walter Cronkite.

When she returns home, Laurene tells her husband (Brian Kerwin) that she
feels obligated to attend the public funeral and pay respect to the man
whom she says was "the only one I ever voted for." Her husband strongly
rejects the idea as frivolous and silly, but Laurene sneaks out at night
and heads east on a bus.

Along the way, she gets to know a black man, Paul Cater (Dennis Haysbert),
and his daughter, who are going home to be reunited with the rest of their
family. Laurene is drawn to the two, in part because the young girl reminds
her of the daughter whom she lost, but also because she is a talkative
busybody who will introduce herself to nearly anyone who will give her a
chance. She soon uncovers secrets about the man and girl, though, and after
a series of mishaps the three are driving to Washington D.C. not only to
get to the funeral but also to avoid the FBI.

Pfieffer and Haysbert give good performances, Ralf Bode's cinematography
renders this a very attractive film, and Jonathan Kaplan's smooth direction
never rushes or delays the plot. As the story of Love Field unfolds,
though, it ventures too often into familiar and expected territory while
relying on trite stereotypes to portray its characters. When Laurene calls
home to explain to her husband what she is doing, he paces back and forth,
running his hand through his hair and yelling, "Jesus, Laurene! Where the
hell are you?" This guy should get together with Thelma's husband from
Thelma and Louise sometime. The relationship between Laurene and
Paul offers few surprises as well. When the two begin to get to know each
other, they act fairly pleasantly towards one another while occasionally
throwing subtle insults into their conversations which reveal the unease
they feel. After noticing Laurene's vacuousness, Paul offers her his
magazine, commenting, "You want this? I'm finished. It's got lots of
pictures." And in one ridiculous moment, as Paul tries to wake Laurene up
she jumps upon seeing him, saying, "Jeez, you scared me. Just like the
bogeyman." All of these apprehensions have left, though, in time for the
inevitable scene in which Laurene delicately washes the wounds of the
topless Paul, looking into his eyes and admitting, "I guess you think I'm
crazy." "No, Laurene. I don't think that," he quietly replies. This is even
more cartoonish here than it was in Disney's Beauty and the
Beast.

But the biggest disappointment of the film is the unimaginative way with
which the film deals with the interracial romance of Laurene and Paul, and
the racism that he is subjected to. Paul is a quiet and soft-spoken black
man, and Laurene's husband is a rude and insensitive white man. Which one
do you think she will find more attractive? The movie removes any challenge
to Laurene, or the audience, by distilling the men to the poles of saint
and sinner. Similarly, Love Field never becomes daring when it deals
with racism. The film does do a good job of suggesting how society's
fascination with the better aspects of the Kennedy administration may have
blinded them to the problems which still existed. At one ironic point
Laurene stands in the middle of a decrepit town and says about Kennedy to
Paul and another black man, "He done a lot for you people." And the
visceral blow the film delivers with the assassination is small relative to
that of a scene in which Paul is savagely beaten in front of his daughter
by some good old boys. But who wouldn't react strongly to these scenes? At
times the movie becomes little else then an excuse for audience members to
pat themselves on the backs for not being rednecks.

This is a problem that all films which deal with the bigotry of the past
deal with. Few movies attempt to provoke audiences as much as in, for
example, Malcolm X, in which Malcolm refers the Kennedy
assassination as a time for "chickens coming home to roost," bringing the
white man's violence back to him in a fatal backfire. Sometimes, as was the
case with Driving Miss Daisy, sublime craftmanship lifts the movie
above its dated nature. This does not happen with Love Field.
Although it is far from being a bad film, it never becomes a truly good
one, and it ultimately seems like a movie which has been sitting on a shelf
for 10 times longer than it actually has been.